2023 September Recap

Work was stressing me out at the beginning of the month, and then I had several personal things come up at the end of the month. A lot has been going on, just not sewing or knitting-related. Regardless, here’s what I accomplished this month.

This year, I have finished 41 projects, with a monthly average of 4.5. Even though it is below my monthly average, I am grateful I was able to complete 2 projects this month.

Of the 2 projects, I knitted socks for Ryan and sewed pants for myself.

Although I use a self-drafted pattern for sock knitting, I did receive a recommendation to check out “Riverbed Master Sock” by Cat Bordhi. I need to purchase the book and try out the method on my next pair of socks. The pants I made myself used a Style Arc pattern.

Even though I thought KnitPicks yarn was going to be more consistent, I found out there is still variability in yarn thickness. I highly recommend getting or making a device so you can count the wraps per inch (WPI). This is how I found out that my sock yarn changed from 20 WPI to 22 WPI and why I ended up knitting Ryan’s socks twice. I had to frog the first time and increase the number of stitches and number of rows to make the socks big enough.

FYI, Ryan printed me out this WPI gauge: https://www.printables.com/model/460506-wraps-per-inch-wpi-yarn-gauge-metric

The fabric for my pants used a new outdoor apparel fabric from Ripstop by the Roll, 5.2 oz Airwave 4-way Stretch Ripstop Nylon. I’m really excited to try out the fabric and see how it holds up with use. Either way, I’m thrilled to have access to a stretch nylon woven fabric. Most stretch woven fabric is polyester, and I loathe polyester! Nylon doesn’t have the static problem that polyester does, and there’s nothing worse than pants with static cling.

The socks were made with wool yarn. Meanwhile, the trousers were made from a woven stretch nylon fabric.

This month, my expenses were low and well below my monthly average. I only spent $13.00 this month on a trousers pattern. I’ve spent $2,522.10 for the year, with a monthly average of $280.23.

In the left figure, I purchased the trousers fabric last month (Amount Ordered: August, purple) and finally got around to using the fabric this month (Amount Used: September, tan). In the right figure, I’m also still using up all the sock yarn I purchased in June (Amount Ordered: June, green).

I have been doing good, adhering to my goal of purchasing materials only when I have a specific project in mind and utilizing them right away. Out of the 41 projects, I have used the material for 75.6% of them within three weeks. In the current year, my average fabric consumption per sewing project is 1.6 yards, while it is 3.8 skeins for knitting projects. I’ve been knitting a lot of socks lately, which doesn’t use a lot of yarn.

My time spent crafting this month only includes knitting. I didn’t measure my time with the trousers, unfortunately. I only spent 9 hours and 5 minutes this month knitting socks.

Out of the 41 projects, it has taken me, on average, 6 hours and 8 minutes across an average of 12.7 days to complete something. I typically spend 23 minutes daily on sewing and 35 minutes on knitting.

The following figures display the hours required to complete the project across days. It took me 31 hours and 35 minutes across 56 days to knit Ryan’s socks. Remember that I knitted them twice since I had to frog them the first time. If you go back to my July Recap, you can see that I take 15-16 hours across 16-20 days to complete a pair of socks. That’s nearly the same as I did for the Stroll Dogwood Heather socks if you divide everything in half. Again, I don’t have data for the trousers I made myself.

I’m not sure what projects I’ll be able to complete in October. There are still some personal things going on that I’ll need to manage. What sewing or knitting plans do you have for the new season?